Page:An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson.djvu/118

 shall be said, "To spy the nakedness of the land are you come." Johnson could not wait for that half-century, and, therefore, mentioned things as he found them. If, in any thing, he has been mistaken, he has made a fair apology, in the last paragraph of his book, avowing with candour: "That he may have been surprised by modes of life, and appearances of nature, that are familiar to men of wider survey, and more varied conversation. Novelty and ignorance must always be reciprocal: and he is conscious that his thoughts on national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little."

The poems of Ossian made a part of Johnson's inquiry, during his residence in Scotland and the Hebrides. On his return to England, November, 1773, a storm seemed to be gathering over his head; but the cloud never burst, and the thunder never fell. Ossian, it is well known, was presented to the public, as a translation from the Earse; but that this was a fraud, Johnson declared, without hesitation. "The Earse," he says, "was always oral only, and never a written language. The Welch